"...James Wigderson takes on local and state issues with intelligence and humor. Even those who disagree with Wigderson respect his thoughtfulness and grasp of political matters." Waukesha Freeman "Community members and columnists help make award-winning Opinion Page" February 5, 2009

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Sunday, April 20, 2008

In response to the robocalls, Pridemore whipped out a press release that, in disclosure, mentioned my husband. Flailing at an imaginary electoral strawman, Pridemore raised speculation that my husband is going to run against him and speculated that it couldn’t be a coincidence that Wisconsin Right to Life was putting out robocalls. Huh? My first thought upon seeing it was: Paul’s running? (Just kidding).

The speculation derived from a blogger who admits she was completely making it up. The best line came from Freeman columnist James Wigderson, who opined that he’d like to see my husband in the state Assembly because “after the first meeting he’d probably demand mandatory Breathalyzer checks for his colleagues.“

Good grief, now Pridemore’s really going to be engaged in conspiracy theories. “His wife wrote a column about me!” the next press release will say. It’s called freedom of speech.

Meanwhile, my husband, who has not considered running for state Assembly (but, thanks, Representative Pridemore for the idea), was working on some legal case blissfully unaware of it all.

Pridemore also took off after Wisconsin Right to Life, stating the group should be “ashamed” of itself. Pridemore insisted that he’s 100 percent pro life. That’s not the point. The group’s upset that there’s evidence he’s not 100 percent for free speech. Under fire, he tried to recast his actions as an attempt to assure voters “retain their rights” if Democrats try to appoint judges.

The way to assure voters retain their rights is to vote against Democratic attempts to appoint judges.

He continued: “The Democrats clearly cannot face the simple fact that their bought-and-paid-for WEAC candidate Louis Butler was defeated in this past election.”

That’s true. So why was Pridemore acting upset too?

Pridemore also stated, “I have told Wisconsin Right to Life that I have no intention of going forward with a bill that would require third party advocacy groups to list their donors, yet in today’s press release they insinuate exact (sic) that.”

Actually, it was an earlier press release from Don Pridemore that insinuated exactly that, one it took him a long time to publicly correct.

It announced: “State Representative Don Pridemore has called for interest group and third-party donor records to be made available to the public. ‘I’ve been considering this legislation for quite some time now, but in the wake of the judicial elections on April 1, it has become even more imperative.’”

Why was it so imperative if the bought-and-paid for WEAC candidate lost?

On Friday, Pridemore whipped out yet another press release, insisting that any reference to third-party donors has been removed from draft legislation, which he called “flexible.”

To me the funniest part of the story is that Paul Bucher was completely unaware that all of this was going on.

By the way, what does anyone think the over-under on the Breathalyzer failure rate is?